


Black Dragon Fighting Society

by wrackspurts_and_renegades



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:28:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrackspurts_and_renegades/pseuds/wrackspurts_and_renegades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank's pretty fucking sure that the second floor of Bob's wasn't always a portal into an alternate universe that's still in the freaking medieval period. And since when could dragons become fucking invisible?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Frank's mom drops him off outside the gates of school a half hour late for the third time in a week, he decides to just go hang out in Nurse Jack's office until the next class starts. He's already missed half of Math anyway, and he hates everyone in that fucking class. He also hates everyone else in his fucking school; besides Mikeyway, who he's got no classes with at all. He sighs melodramatically at the unfairness of life and finally turns the corner to the nurse's office. A tall, skinny guy with messy hair and glasses that Frank knows for a fact he only wears because he thinks they make him look cool opens the door just as he's about to knock.

'Frank! I was starting to get worried. I thought you might have actually gone to class first period or something!'

'Nah dude, my mom was late _again_. Mind if I sit here until Math is finished?'

'Sure, if anyone asks, you've got a massive headache and crippling stomach pains.'

Jack beckons him inside,gestures at the drawer of his filing cabinet where he hides his comic books and indicates for him to sit down. Frank grabs a copy of _Doom Patrol_ and lasts about fifteen minutes before losing his concentration and giving up.

'What's up?' Jack asks, glancing up from his own copy of _The Amazing Spiderman_. 

'Do you think it's weird if, like, if someone like ... nothing, nevermind.' 

'... Okay?' 

Jack eyes him suspiciously before re-immersing himself in his comic book. Frank just sits there for the next ten minutes before the bell goes and replaces _Doom Patrol_ on his way out. Some ginger kid almost bowls him over in their haste to get to the nurse's office and proceeds to vomit a fountain of acid green onto Jack's shoes. 

'You're cleaning that the fuck up as soon as I'm sure you're not dying from some horribly contagious foreign STI,' Frank hears Jack inform them. He snorts, shoves his hands in his pockets and strolls up to his English class. He already can't wait for the day to be over. 

******* 

By the time lunch rolls around Frank is pissed off and craving a cigarette and some coffee. 

'Get your own, asshole!' Mikeyway complains when he tries to steal both from him. Frank just gives him really big puppy dog eyes, the kind that say 'If you deny me these things my entire life is going to crumble apart right before you,' and he caves within ten seconds. Mikey likes to pretend he's emotionless, but anyone that knows him for more than ten minutes knows that's bullshit. 

'Bad day?' he asks, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and flicking it on. Frank just snorts and cups his hands around the flame, leaning in so he can light up. 

'Want to skip the rest of it and go to my house? My brother brought home a ton of cartoons Cartoon Network decided were too weird to air; it's fucking gold.' 

'Gerard's home?' Frank hasn't seen Gerard since he was about twelve and Gerard moved out to go to SVA. He was pretty sure there was a reason Gerard always saved up to fly Mikey out to him instead of visiting home but Mikey never made a big deal about it so Frank never brought it up. 

'Yeah, didn't I tell you? I'll get him to pick us up from Bob's, I want some new records and I can probably guilt him into buying me some since he hasn't seen me in three months.' 

Bob owns what Frank is convinced is the best shop in the world. The ground floor is packed with mainly vinyls and vintage video games; although there are always a couple of weird-as-shit surprise items lying around too. One time he found a framed picture of a bagel wearing a sombrero behind a stack of Maiden records.  
The room is tiny and L-shaped, and there's an oversized, beat-up old sofa and possibly the largest TV ever created around the corner. It's got every type of games console imaginable hooked up to it, and sometimes when Ray's working he lets them sit there and play games for hours.  
Upstairs there's a slightly larger room that's got more bookcases in it than Frank thought existed in the world. They're lining the walls but they also form a bizzarly complicated maze that's so narrow you can't take two steps without crashing into it. The contents are roughly a fifty-fifty split between comic books and book books, and they don't really all fit on the shelves so they're everywhere else too; piled on windowsills, crammed in the space between the bookcases and the ceiling, thrown on the beanbags that were originally meant for sitting on. Bob can usually be found at the back of this room, in a space enclosed by two bookcases that isn't actually possible to get to unless you're him. Frank doesn't know how he does it, because Bob is a fucking giant and Frank is tiny (not that he'll ever admit it out loud) and he still hasn't figured out how to get in there.  
The top floor - Frank's favourite floor - isn't as cramped as the other two. On the left there's a wall of electric guitars, on the right a wall of acoustics, and a couple of basses along the back. The fourth wall isn't actually a wall, it's a giant-as-fuck window that faces the riverbank behind the shop. Sometimes, when Frank's lucky, a gang of kids hang out there and get drunk before the shop closes at seven. Whenever that happens he calls Mikey and whoever else happens to be in the shop upstairs and they spend a good half hour laughing at the inevetable, terrible 'your mom' fights that break out. 

When they push open the door, Pete's balancing on top of a pile of cushions on top of a stepping stool on top of a chair that's just about big enough to hold it, still stretching to get to something at the back of the top shelf. He's chatting animatedly to a customer who looks like he wants nothing more than for Pete to just get back to solid ground before he topples over, but when he voices his concerns, Pete's having none of it. 

'Stop worrying, man, I'll be fine, I do this all the time! I'm sure I saw it back here a few days ago ... Hey, what'd you say your name was again?' 

'I'm Patrick. Look, I don't need the record badly enough that I'm willing to risk you breaking your neck for it. Just get down from there, please?' 

'Patrick. You worry too much. Look, I got it!' Pete grins triumphantly, waving _Whitney Houston: Greatest Hits ___around in the air and spotting Frank and Mikey in the doorway as he does so.

'Hey guys! Say hi to Patrick. Patrick, that's Mikey and that's Frank.' 

Patrick nods awkwardly at them both, raises a hand at them and then tries to nonchalantly place it on the chair to stop Pete from overbalancing. Thankfully, Pete is mid-epiphany and doesn't notice. 

'Mikeyway, you're tall! Come here and help me down.' 

Mikey rolls his eyes but does as he's told and walks over to Pete. When he's close enough, he turns around and Pete half jumps, half climbs onto his back before leaping to the ground. 

'Your record, my good sir,' he says, bowing low and presenting Patrick with his Whitney Houston vinyl. Patrick blushes furiously and follows him to the counter, where he pays for his record and leaves. 

'Smooth,' Frank laughs. 

'I know, right? He'll be back.' 

'Like the last three guys you wooed so spectacularly?' 

'Shut up asshole! Anyway, why are you here? Wanna play some _Crash Bash_ on the PS1?' 

'Nah, we're just waiting for my brother to come pick us up. I'm gonna guilt-trip him into buying me a new record.' 

'You have a brother?' 

'Perfect, say that when he comes in.' 

'Say what when who comes in?' 

Mikey turns to see his brother standing in the doorway, coffee in hand and looking even paler than usual. 

'Gerard!' 

'Mikeyway!' 

They envelope each other in a massive hug before Mikey initiates his plan. 

'I haven't seen you in _months_! Literally!' he whines accusingly into Gerard's shoulder. 

'I know, I know, I'm sorry, I've just been really busy and even poorer than usual lately. I'm a terrible excuse for a big brother, I know.' 

Frank can see him start to panic when Mikey doesn't contradict him immediately. He pulls out of the hug, sticks his hand in his back pocket, and says: 

'Tell you what, pick out anything you want here and I'll buy it for you. As long as it's under ...' he pulls his hand out of his pocket, looks at the money in it and gives a rough estimate, '... twenty-five dollars?' 

Mikey beams at him and disappears behind a stack of records. Pete goes back to whatever game he's got paused in the corner, and Gerard breathes out a sigh of relief and finally turns to look at Frank. 

'No way. _Frank?_ I haven't seen you in _years_! You haven't grown an inch!' 

'Already with the height jokes again, huh?' Frank grumbles. He doesn't really mind though. Gerard's still not that much taller than he is. Gerard just flashes him a grin and takes the record Mikey's reappeared with up to the counter. 

'Really, Mikey? The Spice Girls?' 

'They're a national treasure!' 

'They're British!' 

'I never said they were _our_ national treasure.' 

******* 

'What ... the actual fuck?' Mikey manages to wheeze out when they finally come to the end of the three hours worth of Cartoon Network rejects. 

'I know, right! And they thought mine were bad, Jesus!' 

Gerard stands up and stretches his arms above his head. 

'Well, I'm gonna go for a drive. To the store. I need to buy some smokes. Coming?' 

Frank, who usually can't even sit still for that long to watch _Star Wars_ , jumps up from the bed and drags Mikey with him. 

'Can't you just leave me here to die from the fumes that are somehow _already_ filling Gerard's room even though he's only been here for two days?' 

'Nope.' 

'Asshole,' Mikey grumbles, sitting back on the bed to out his shoes on. 

'Who needs shoes, you fucking princess, his car's in the garage. You don't even have to go outside.' 

Mikey flips Frank off and stands up again, kicks the shoe he shoved on off and then sprints up the stairs from the basement. 

'Shotgun!' he shouts back over his shoulder. 

'Asshole,' Frank yells back. 

'He doesn't know I spilled a can of Coke on the seat when I came back from the pizza place earlier,' Gerard whispers to Frank, following Mikey to the garage. 

'Open the doors, it's fucking freezing in here!' 

'Fine, fine, here!' Gerard pushes a button on his key and the locks jump open. 

Frank quickly slides into the only seat in the back that isn't covered in easels and comic books and boxes of assorted art supplies that Gerard can't be bothered lugging down to his room and watches with amusement as Mikey sits right into the car without looking. 

He jumps back out again straight away. 

'WHAT THE FUCK, GERARD, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU SPILLED A FUCKING COKE ON THE SEAT!?!' 

Gerard, however, was clutching his stomach and doing that weird high pitched giggle of his that Frank had absolutely never found sort of adorable, and therefore in no fit state to talk. He stopped soon enough, though, when Mikey snatched the keys out of his hand and sat himself in the driver's seat. 

'What are you doing?' 

'I can drive now, remember?' 

'Yeah, but you're not driving _my_ car, where am I supposed to sit?' 

'I am unless you want me to rip up one of your old sketchbooks when you go back.' 

'You wouldn't,' Gerard smirks. 

'I would, however, find a way to ensure that mom finds all of the gay porn you've got stashed around your room. _All of it_ Even that magazine that's got-' 

'-You wouldn't!' Gerard repeats, sounding a lot less sure of himself this time. 

Mikey just shrugs and goes to get out of the car. 

'Okay, okay, you can drive. But where do I _sit_?' 

Mikey shrugs again. 

'Sit on Frank.' 

'But-' 

'Weren't that guys balls like-' 

'-sorry Frank,' Gerard says hastily, plonking himself on Frank's lap. 

'What the fuck do you jerk off to, dude?' Frank mutters. 

Gerard skillfully ignores him. 

'So, Mikey, I kind of lied about where we're going. Drive us to Bob's.' 

'It closed four hours ago!' 

'Yes, and apparently Pete told that Patrick guy we were having a movie night there tonight because he wants an excuse to be smushed up next to him on a sofa in the dark, which Bob agreed to as long as we don't make enough noise to disturb him where he'll be reading upstairs because he doesn't trust us to not wreck the place. Ray and two of his friends'll be there too. It was _supposed_ to be a surprise, but seeing as Mikey insisted on driving-' 

'Balls. Dyed purple. And covered in -' 

'Fine, fine, I'll shut up!' 

'How do you know all this anyway?' 

'Pete texted me.' 

'Pete doesn't have your phone number.' 

'Didn't. Ray gave it to him, I think.' 

'But why didn't he just text m-' 

'Are you going to fucking drive or not?' 

******* 

By the time they get to Bob's, they're the last ones there and everyone else has already claimed their spots on the couch. Mikey blatantly ignores this and squishes himself in between Ray and some guy Frank's never seen before. The guy offers him the bowl of popcorn he's holding, though, so maybe he doesn't care all that much. Frank sits beside another guy he's never seen before and Gerard just manages to fit next to him. 

'Andy,' the guy sitting next to him sticks out his hand. 

'Frank. And that's Gerard,' Frank shakes it and accepts the handful of M &Ms he's being offered. 

'Right, well now that everyone's _finally_ here,' Pete glares meaningfully at Mikey, Frank and Gerard, 'I guess we can start the movie.' 

Mikey throws a handful of popcorn at him. 

'Just press fucking play already.' 

Pete looks like he's about to grab the bowl of popcorn and dump it over Mikey's face, but before he can there's an ear-shattering crash from upstairs. 

'Isn't Bob up there?' Ray asks nervously. 

'Shit,' Frank curses, jumping up from the sofa and making a run for the stairs. 

'Should we follow him,' Patrick voices uncertainly. 

'Yeah, come on,' Pete grabs his hand to pull him upstairs, but no-one notices when he turns probably the colour of a tomato so it's okay. They burst through the door after Frank, but he's come to a complete halt. Gerard smacks into him. 

'What the fuck, dude? Is Bob okay? 

'Fine,' comes Bob's bemused voice from somewhere to his right. 

'This is the second floor of your _shop_? Sick, man!' says the guy whose name Frank still hasn't caught. 

'No, Joe, this is not the second floor of his shop. At all. Not even a little bit,' says Ray. 

'I don't mean to alarm anyone,' Patrick says 'but I'm about 100% sure that a dragon is licking the side of my face.' 


	2. Chapter 2

'Hey, Bob?'

'Yes, Pete?'

'Gotta say, whatever you did with the place, I kinda like it.'

'Pete?'

'Yes, Bob?'

'Shut the fuck up and go help your boyfriend with his dragon problem.'

'Oh, I'm not his boyfriend, we just - I just - _a little help here, please_?'

Gerard takes approximately a quarter of a millisecond to appreciate the fact that Patrick seems to be able to maintain his embarrassment at being called Pete's boyfriend while there's a dragon all up in his space. He thinks even that was definitely a waste of time, because _shit_ this place is everything. The sky seems closer here than it did when they were driving to Bob's; the stars are bigger and the moon is an impossibly perfect crescent. If he looks one way the horizon is jarred by jagged mountain-tops, if he looks the other it stretches on until the sea meets the sky. They're standing at the edge of a valley, looking out over a large settlement. Semi-permanent looking dwellings are sprawl out haphazardly around a large bonfire in the centre; wattle-and-daub huts with colourful cloths hanging instead of doors. A few small, unidentifiable animals are wandering around lesiurely, but other than that there's no movement - everyone seems to be asleep. No time-difference then. It's as though, Gerard thinks, they've been planted right in the middle of their very own fantasy novel. Which is great, but he's pretty sure they're supposed to be given at least a few more minutes before they encounter an apparently not-so-mythical creature. Or at least they should have seen it coming. They most definitely, he decides, should not have to deal with a dragon without at least five seconds foreknowledge that dragons do, in fact, exist. It's not right, and he has no idea how to help. Which is a shame, because he wouldn't have minded Frank seeing him as some kind of heroic dragon slayer. Not that he cares about what Frank thinks, really. It just could have been fun, is all.  
  
Pete isn't having much better luck than Gerard at figuring out the social protocol for when a dragon is licking the face of a guy you just met that day. It's worse for Pete, because in Patrick's eyes, this is probably all his fault. Patrick, Pete thinks, has probably already made a resolution to never speak to Pete ever again. Patrick is probably cursing himself right now for ever agreeing to go see a movie with some kid with weirdly big teeth and sinfully tight skinny jeans. The skinny jeans, Pete reasons, are almost certainly the only reason Patrick said yes to him in the first place. He feels kind of bad for luring the poor guy in with them, but hey, it's not like he knew his soulmate was just going to walk into Bob's and ask him for a Whitney Houston vinyl. That kind of shit doesn't happen to Pete. That kind of shit doesn't happen to anyone, except maybe in movies and his mom's romance novels. He realises that being jealous of a dragon for molesting the (extremely attractive) face of the guy he's destined to spend the rest of eternity with before he got to is just irrational and therefore no excuse for him to attempt to tackle said dragon, but it's still a close thing.  
  
The thing is, the dragon isn't trying to slay them or whatever it is dragons are supposed to do. So far, licking Patrick's face is its only offence, and Patrick is more mildly-disgusted than terrified. Slowly, he raises a hand and places it on the dragon's neck, petting it cautiously. The dragon starts practically _wagging its tail_ and he breathes a sigh of relief. This is just like playing with Taylor's dog. The dragon lowers the top of its head so Patrick can scratch at his ears, and it takes Patrick .05 seconds to hastily correct his judgement. This is just like playing with Taylor's dog, if Bill snorted fire from his nostrils while doing a very passable impression of laughter.  
  
Pete knows Patrick's hoody just got slightly singed, he knows that but he feels like an absolute shit for dragging Patrick into this situation when all the poor guy wanted was a movie and some popcorn.  
  
'Jesus, Patrick, are you okay? Are you hurt? Does it sting? I'd stab it to defend your honour or something but I don't have a knife handy and also I mean it's a _dragon_ , dude, that's pretty fucking cool and oh shit I didn't mean to offend you or anything I mean I know you're probably perfectly capable of defending your own honour or whatever but you know it's my fault you're here in the first place and -'  
  
'Whoa, Pete. **Pete**. It's okay, I'm fine. Just got my sleeve, see?' He holds up his charred sleeve for Pete to inspect and repeats softly, 'I'm fine.'  
  
Pete's still pretty sure Patrick is silently hoping the dragon gets its shit together and swallows Pete whole sometime soon, but Patrick's voice is really soothing, so he just lets himself be soothed for a second.  
  
'Hey guys?' Joe asks the group in general. 'Anyone else notice our new friend has conveniently disappeared?'  
  
'What do you mean conveniently disappeared?' Andy asks him. 'Conveniently for who? For us? Because I'm pretty sure if we were inconveniencing it, it could have just stood on us or something. Thing was the size of a giraffe. But with wings and scales and ... stuff.'  
  
'A giraffe's a pretty accurate height comparison, actually,' Ray agrees.  
  
'Thanks, man.'  
  
'Hey, when you're right, you're right, you know.'  
  
'Guys. I think we're all in agreement around the giraffe thing. The giraffe thing is irrelevant. It's settled. Question is, why did our dragon friend vanish suddenly. Should we be worried, now?' Frank asks.  
  
'Worried about what?'  
  
'Well, again, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but there is a rather unsettling looking bearded guy in a toga standing behind you all,' Patrick pipes up.  
  
'Well aren't you just a harbinger of joy and fortune?'  
  
'Hey, the dragon didn't end up being all that bad, maybe this guy won't be either?'  
  
'On the contrary, my friend,' the guy says in an unidentifiable accent, 'I am quite a bit worse than your dragon friend.'  
  
'Oh,' says Patrick.  
  
'Cool,' says Joe.  
  
*******  
  
'Gerard,' Mikey says after they've all been left in one of the smaller buildings, shackled to both each other and a contraption whose sole purpose seems to be to shackle things to, 'you okay?'  
  
'M'fine,' Gerard answers, knowing that's just Mikey's way of asking for reassurance. 'You?'  
  
'M'good. Shackles are kinda painful. I'm okay, though.'  
  
'Good.'  
  
'Yeah.'  
  
As it turns out, not only does this place have dragons, wherever it is, but it's also got magic. Or, more specifically, it's got at least one, unsettling, bearded guy in a toga who's got magic.It would suck, Mikey thinks, if everyone in this entire universe could use magic besides them. It would be a major disadvantage in fights. It could render them subject to discrimination by the bigots of this place. They would be completely helpless in situations involving anyone anyone besides the nine of them. But most importantly, it would mean everyone in this whole damn universe could do magic besides them.  
  
Creepy Jesus Guy hadn't actually physically harmed them in any way. No C _ruciatus_ curse, no invisible forcefields slamming them to the ground, no firestrikes. Just a mildly disappointing wavering barrier that surrounded them and forced them to follow along. It's still there, shimmering in the moonlight - appearing much less solid than it actually is. The shackles, Mikey thinks, are a completely unnecessary, distractingly painful symbol of ownership; a reminder that they aren't going anywhere until whoever brought them here says so.

******

The way they've been shackled together makes it all too simple for Frank to lean his head on Gerard's shoulder without it seeming strange. He hopes. If anyone thinks anything of it, they haven't mentioned it out loud. Which is good, because if they did he'd probably turn the colour of a beetroot and he'd rather not show Patrick up with the whole 'extreme blushing' thing.

Thankfully, no one seems to be looking in their direction, because when Gerard leans his head on top of Frank's while he might not turn the colour of a beet, per se, he does do a weird victory dance with his eyebrows, which isn't a talent he knew he had.

The faded blue cloth covering the entrance to the hut jerks aside suddenly, and a short red-haired girl walks in carrying a large loaf of bread, a pail of water and a giant round keychain.

'Okay, so here's the deal,' she says, kneeling down beside Joe and unlocking his shackles before quickly moving on to Andy. 'I don't know who you are. I don't know how you got here, even. All I know is that the last time Benjamin came back here with a group of weirdly-dressed teenagers, he convinced Alex they were in league with the Society and there was a public stoning. Lots of blood. Lots of tears. Lots of death. Now me, I personally don't think any of you look in the least bit capable of getting past the Society's initiation ceremony, nor do I enjoy stoning innocents until the life drains from their eyes. So,' she straightened up, having freed all of them from their shackles, and started breaking bits off the loaf of bread and handing it to them, 'You are all going to eat some bread, drink some water and follow me down to the river. I'll take you as far as the forest and you can find your own way from there. I brought you a map, so hopefully you won't get too hopelessly lost. Everyone finished? Ready to go? Good.'

She strode out of the hut just as suddenly as she'd entered it, beckoning for them to follow. Frank made to follow her first and abruptly smacked into the barrier of magic.

' _Fuck_ me,' he exclaimed, crumpling to the ground and holding his head in his hands.

'Patience,' she smiled wryly, turning back and waving her hand so the barrier seemed to thin slightly. 'You'll have to push slightly, but if I take it away completely he'll notice something's up.'

'Can you _all_ do magic?' Mikey asked.

'No,' she said, her tone suddenly becoming more serious. 'You must tell no one that I performed magic here tonight. If you do, I will be killed. Do you understand?'

They nodded, Mikey slightly more pleased by the fact that they weren't at too much of a disadvantage than alarmed by the rapid change in tone.

'Good. Now follow me. Quick. We must hurry if we are to make it to the river before you are found to be missing.'

Mikey thought there was a twinkle in her eye when she looked at him and added, 'Of course, where you are going, everyone else _will_ be practised in the magical arts.'

 


End file.
